This is what came of the poem I completed and lost
Two days earlier near sunset beside the Virgin River.
Startled as I was when my phrases fluttered away,
I was a little bit grateful for at least one thing
To have destroyed itself before me, one passage
I witnessed emerge, composed, then saw go, gone for good.
And it gave me a title. I've always been thankful for a likable title,
And this was a title I liked, especially perched on the cliff.
The next day, closer to done, I sat in the sun
In my perilous courtyard under the Watchman
And watched my daughter and her friend play.
They had dressed themselves in yards of unused tulle
And raced around the lawn as fairy princesses
In veils and trains, tripping and flying, bouncing
In and out of the small bouncy house, bright and dark.
I could have sworn for a day this was a life I could live
As it was for a time, for a long time, changing only slowly.
I knew I was wrong. I knew what was gone. But I gloried
In the comfortable day anyway. While I was composing the words
They were already the past, a deep but dazzling darkness.
Slaepwerigne, then, I woke up on this, my fifty-fifth Thanksgiving Day
To the sight of three stars over the garden's west gate
And the left hand of my daughter tousling my hair. Papa,
I can't sleep anymore. Papa, wake up. I'm bored.
We spent a sunny morning cantilevering toy blocks
Into tottering, counterweighted towers under the bronze-leaved tree.
Afternoon would mean pulling ourselves together, penniless,
To ascend the mesa and feast with a pretend family of actual friends.
I stole an hour and used precious fuel to drive up Maintenance Road,
Then hid out in the early shadows under the towering thrones,
Thinking how wordless behaviors can lead to hundreds of poems.
I believe it was neither love nor duty kept the boy on the burning deck,
Although I prefer Bishop's allegory to McGuffey's fifty-fifth lesson.
A real boy was frightened and confused in all the noise
And didn't know how to leave, didn't know what to do, didn't want to go
Despite surely knowing he was doomed. But that's not the poem.
It was time to go up the long, unsealed road to the mesa, to be a man
Eating reflections of myself. Not so poetic, just dark so early
That the windows would be obsidian mirrors as we ate, I knew.
Still, there was some cliff glow left when we got there, and a rocking chair,
And company gathered inside, around all the food, out of the chill,
Dry air, trying hard to not talk politics, not entirely succeeding,
Young and old and a couple of dogs. I caught myself reflected
Eventually making the familiar mistake of small talk, opinions I wasn't sure I held,
Anecdotes, allusions, ideas, and leftover witticisms like covered dishes I offered
To justify my presence at the table. When did my lost, finished poem
Become this unfinished, garrulous, nearly narrative skein? Our host
Taught my daughter how to tap a paradiddle. The cranky old truck
Made it home down the dirt ledge road under starlight, everything bright so far,
And the town lit itself with holiday lights in the canyon at evening's end.
No comments:
Post a Comment